Census Data Shows Continued Gains For Middle-Class Americans And Little Evidence Of Rising Income Inequality — Bottom Line

Here are some of the key takeaways from the new Census report on US incomes through 2017:

The 1.8% gain in real median US household income last year brought median income to more than $61,000, the highest level ever recorded.

The income gain in 2017 was the fifth annual increase and the first period of five consecutive increases in median household income since the late 1990s.

Compared to 1975, the typical US household today has $12,464 more annual income (in 2017 dollars) or more than $1,200 more per month in real, inflation-adjusted dollars to spend on goods and services, many of which have become much more affordable today than in the 1970s (or weren’t even available then).

Adjusted for household size, which has been falling over time, real median household income per household member last year of $24,160 (in 2017 dollars) was the highest in history.

Real median income for married couples with both spouses working reached a new all-time record high last year of $111,000 and has more than doubled from $54,700 in 1963.

By three different measures — income shares of the top 5% and 20% and the Gini coefficient — there is no evidence of a significant rise in income inequality over the last 25 years; all three measures have been remarkably flat for more than two decades.

The share of US households with incomes of $100,000 or more (in 2017 dollars) reached a new record high of 29.2% last year, which is more than triple the share of households in 1967 with that level of income. At the same time, the share of US low-income households (real incomes of $35,000 or below) fell to a near-record low of 29.5%.

America’s middle-class is disappearing but into higher, not lower, income categories over time.